Spirit Birth: a Bionicle Reimagining
by Guardian Yeti
Summary: A re-imagining of the Bionicle story, based on the Lego toy line.
1. Chapter 1

CHAPTER 1

The blade was stained black, almost disappearing in the shadows of the underground lair. Steam rose off it, hissing quietly from the unbearable heat. The sizzling sound was unheard, however, drowned out by the heavy breathing of the hulking Makuta, who had been driven to his knees. His blood-red eyes, though glazed over, pierced the full dark. His lips were peeled back in a pained snarl, though the energy was gone from him. His anger was, again, fueled.

For this was his first death, it was not his first failure. For the last twelve years his plans had been foiled time and time again by a single hero. Kopaka, the Toa of ice. Makuta remembered the very day the white one appeared. He had watched, darting from shadow to shadow, eyeing this strange, new creature of intelligence and strength, followed him in secret as he was inexorably drawn, feet dragging in the sand, dirt, and stone, to the Ko-Koro mountains, where snow was more abundant than air.

Normally Makuta did not venture into the six Matoran cities. Not out of fear of the small workers who did not reach his knee but fear of his self. Whenever he saw the Matoran he found himself full of a rage hotter than the lake of magma in which Ta-Koro floated. And Makuta could not let his anger control him. Yet. He must wait until the time is right. And with the coming of this white creature, Kopaka, it seemed to be drawing closer and closer.

He stalked the man like a lion stalks his prey, waiting to see just what it will do. Just imagine Makuta's glee when the Matoran struck out of their homes carrying large discs, the weapons they could throw at long distances. Quickly they took place and readied their arms, letting Kopaka come into range. For a brief moment Makuta actually believed the Hall of Prophecies was wrong, that the Matoran would defeat and shun the man before the fortold could approach fruition.

But a snarl, so close to the one on his face now, appeared when Turaga Nuju hobbled out of the gates and ordered the guards to stand down. The man, with a crooked back and still taller than the Matoran, bowed his head to the white creature. The whispers had begun then, but Makuta heard them all distinctly. Their wise one was kneeling? Makuta knew, once and for all, that the prophecies were not just careless tales and that he would have to fight this man, this Toa, of legend.

And he had. And he had lost. But dying was not what Makuta had expected. He could feel his body fading, becoming more and more lost and separated from his spirit, but he was not being pulled away. His crimson eyes faded, closed. And opened, deeper in the earth, his body was weak, but strength returned at every passing second. In a moment he stood tall once more. He was not dead. Not anymore.

There must have been something more to the prophecy, he thought. After all, Makuta could not read the ancient dialect in its entirety. Only one could do that, a gift given to Turaga Nokama by the Noble Mask she wore.

Makuta touched his face with a black, clawed hand and then pulled it away. He looked at it with wonder. He was not dead, but only angrier. And that fury gave him a wave of strength. He was not dead. He could not die—at least not yet. This changed everything.

Kopaka returned to the surface with weary feet, feeling his way along, sighing a relieved sigh every time the temperature dropped. The heat down there, underground, flowed like a child's anger and he did not like it one bit.

His sword was blackened with Makuta's blood, and so he did not sling it on his back as usual. His shield was rent, but he had only the one so he hefted it up the sloping, winding tunnel. Where was he under the island? The tunnel was so long and Kopaka's sense of direction was gone. He could be under Le-Koro's forests for all he knew, or on the beach, where the water met the land.

After a short eternity of decreasing pressure, the white warrior saw, quite literally, the light at the end of the tunnel. No matter how much energy he had lost, or the small wounds he had taken, he broke into a run and let the sunlight wash over him. He could hear the quiet roar of a waterfall nearby and was blinded by the bright reflections of lush vegetation.

Immediately the stains on his sword pooled together and roiled off like fog. It fled with a mind of its own, disappearing into the tunnel and into the darkness. Kopaka was too tired to care. He dropped his shield and sword and fell back against a concave wall, breathing heavily, his head drawing loops in the air. His left eye, a bit like a spy's goggles, flexed in and out, extended and pulled back, seeing through the rocky walls that rose around him. He was somewhere in Le-Koro, at the base of the Mangai Volcano, which rose in the center of the island.

Kopaka sighed and scooped up his items. The sword, now clean, he slung on his back, but he was forced to carry his broken shield. He set off at a steady walk along the base of the volcano. By mid-afternoon he picked up his pace, not wanting to be caught out, alone, at night. But with Makuta dead, what does it matter? He asked himself and had no answer. Something was wrong. As the last lights of the day disappeared, the sea sparkling in the distance, Kopaka saw the gates to Ta-Koro, nestled safely in the Mangai Volcano.

He immediately broke into a run, sweat breaking on his masked face. He fought the urge to look back. Something was wrong. There was a shout as he approached and the outer gates first rose, then a series of rocks were lifted from the lava by a hidden series of mechanisms that only Kopaka's x-ray eye could see. In seconds he was across the pillars and through the inner gates.

Ta-Koro was the same as the last time Kopaka visited. Hot. The Matoran were either as red as the lake of lava their city sat on or as gold as the lightstones that were set on the walls in place of torches.

Kopaka allowed himself to slow. The few people out, the others already retired for the night, stopped and stared. Surely there had been whisperings of what Kopaka had been planning. He had, over the course of many months, scouted out the dreaded Makuta's hiding place. Nobody would have guessed it was right in the center of the island, feet from Mangai's base, though they all suspected it to be underground. The God thrived on darkness.

Kopaka waved them off and, trying to remain calm, forced himself to walk the long walk without haste. Vakama's hut, larger than all the others, was just on the other side of the room. The huts were made of rock and connected to the ground itself, almost carved out. In reality, it was the Onu-Matorans who had made them with their expert earth know-how.

Kopaka reached the two-room building and stepped inside, pushing past the bead curtain that acted as a door.

Two of the Turaga were in the room, seated around, what else, a fire. They were Vakama, the Ta-Koro wise one, and Whenua of Onu-Koro.

Vakama stood, using his staff. On top of the long stick was a ball which, on his will, would catch flame. Whenua did the same, though his staff was a drill, not unlike a spear. All the Turaga had canes to show authority, and all were the oldest in the village. They were also set apart by their Noble masks, which granted them limited powers. Kopaka loomed over both of them, as he did to all but Makuta and the Rahi beasts.

"Kopaka, you return relatively unscathed. I am glad," said Vakama calmly, placing a hand on top of his cane for support.

The Toa could not suppress a smile. Here, in the light caused by the fire and lightstones, he was safe. "I may be fine, but the evil Makuta is not. I have vanquished the dark God. Or so I think." Kopaka inclined his head. "I believe I was withheld information."

Whenua and Vakama shared a grave look. Whenua sighed and nodded and began to speak in a gravelly voice. "Kopaka, we did not tell you because we needed to have it confirmed."

"Have what confirmed?" The ice warrior tightened his grip on his shield.

"In the Hall of Prophecies, it is said that the Makuta can only be defeated by the right person, at the right time," Whenua continued.

Kopaka shrank closer to the fire. "I thought Makuta could be defeated by a Toa. That's why I exist, right? To kill Makuta?"

Vakama picked up again. "Makuta can be killed by a certain Toa at a certain time."

Kopaka's eyes narrowed. "Are you saying there are more Toa out there? Why was I not told?"

It was a female voice that answered, from behind the white warrior. "Several, actually, but none have came to us yet. We believe that they will only appear when the time is right."

It was Ga-Koro's Turaga, Nokama.

"So what am I supposed to do until then?" Kopaka asked. "Wait around and let Makuta destroy Mata-Nui?"

Vakama spoke again while Nokama hobbled to his side using her trident. "You are the first, Kopaka, and you will have the most experience when the Toa appears. It will be up to you to teach him or her how, exactly, Makuta can be most easily defeated. Until then, you must keep him at bay."

Kopaka thrust his shield at the three. "Look at this! Makuta nearly had me this first time! There is no way I could hold him off a second time or a third or fourth! Look, none of you were there, underground, in his lair. None of you felt his anger, his fury, when I took him down! It was like I could see what he wanted, and he wanted fire. He wants the entire island of Mata Nui to go up in flames. He wants to shatter Mount Mangai and watch as the lava floods over everything!"

Kopaka paused, feeling a fear colder than the deepest snows of Ko-Koro. "I think that…that with every defeat his power grows. With our every victory we come closer to defeat." For Kopaka, admitting that fear was almost as impossible as defeating Makuta again.

One of the lightstones lining the circular wall, its time come, guttered out and went black.


	2. Chapter 2

CHAPTER 2

There were three levels of masks: Kanohi, Noble Kanohi, and Great Kanohi. The vast majority of living things had simple Kanohi, which granted life and energy and were created in a forge long ago, the art now forgotten. The Noble masks granted limited special powers and were worn by only the highest up, the Turaga. The Noble masks were, quite simply, a combination of normal Kanohi masks made long ago. The Great Kanohi, however, could not be created by Matoran hands and were granted only to heroes. To Toa.

All Rahi, the beasts that roamed the island of Mata Nui, all wore simple Kanohi masks. The Nui-Jaga that skittered around the canyon, their rounded feet slipping in the sand, bouncing off in another direction when they collided with one another, however, did not. Eight of the over-sized scorpions had decided to become Makuta's slaves that day and turned hostile to the Po-Matoran sculptors, now stuck high on the facets they had carved in the mountainside.

Kopaka surveyed the situation from atop the closed gateway. He had, so far, sealed them into this area, but had no clue on how to further help. Each Nui-Jaga had two masks instead of the one the Matoran, Toa, and Turaga wore. To beat the scorpions, one had to knock free both masks. This was a simple task if the creatures were calm…and would be even easier if they weren't fueled by Makuta's evil.

Whenever the dark God decided to cause trouble, he would take some unsuspecting Rahi beasts and replace their common, low-power masks with his own Infected Kanohi. Makuta, it seemed, had a nearly inexhaustible source of these masks, because Kopaka could not count how many he had seen destroyed.

He assessed the situation from his vantage point. He could attempt to take them out one by one, most sensibly; move in and remove the infected masks. Without their power source, the creatures would fall into a weak, barely conscious state. The problem was their stingers, which hung precariously from their backside. One strike and Kopaka would find the tables turned, his own mask, the Great Kanohi Akaku, lost to the sand.

Thus, he was stuck attempting to find a clear way to vanquish his foes. If worst came to worse, he supposed, they had to sleep sometime. But the Nui-Jaga had other plans, apparently. Their movements had been seemingly random, a useless and uncoordinated attempt at escape. Now, Kopaka saw, it was quite the opposite. They had been slowly creeping towards the pile of rubble that gated them in. Kopaka had felled the rocks earlier, knowing that one or two Nui-Jaga could not hope to break through it in time. But eight of them together would make short work of it.

The Toa hissed and stood. What should he do? Fighting the group was suicidal, but he couldn't let them escape. He had to accept the fact that, as he was, there was no chance for victory. He needed to be stronger! It was as if the need for power was a wish, shouted to the heavens. Suddenly, Kopaka found energy rushing through his veins, a cold air begging to be released. He did not know where this power came from, but did not question it with more than a quizzical look at his palms.

He drew his sword, aimed it at the beasts, and let the energy follow its path. A beam of ice-like blast cut through the air like sharp words, slicing through the beasts and bathing them in a hue of blue and white. He swept the sword over each of them, watching in a frenzied wonder as their joints became frozen, threatening to sprout blades of ice from their bodies.

The force taking him over swung the sword to the sky and waved it in a circle. A storm gathered, just yards from the ground, and, for perhaps the first time in history, it hailed heavily in the desert of Po-Koro. Soon the Nui-Jaga were bunkered down, shaking in a pale confusion.

Kopaka's arm fell to his side with a heavy thump. He knew he should act then, strike the infected Kanohi from the Rahi, but he was too stunned by the energies he released to move. His mind was reeling with a few golden words, chosen carefully, by some higher force.

_My Gift to you, my son._

It was the voice of Mata Nui, he knew without knowing. This was a taste of the power Mata Nui could give, only a taste, an ant in a universe, and it was awesome.

The Nui-Jaga were breaking free, their frozen exteriors crackling and droplets of ice sprinkling to the ground, glittering like shattered glass, until the ground was full of them so that you could see your full reflection, though broken, on the sands. For a second, Kopaka was staring back into his blue eyes, then the ice was gone, melted.

The opportunity lost, Kopaka's mind jerked back into the action to formulate a new strategy. He should just blast them again. He aimed his sword at one of the Nui-Jaga, one that was dominantly a purple color, and redirected a stab of energy through it. The creature shied out of the way, the blast disappearing into the sand uselessly.

Kopaka lurched, his balance lost to the air. One foot slid precariously to the edge of the wall. He fell to one knee and placed his sword hand on the top of the wall. The fluctuation in available energy had some side-effects, it seemed.

From his weakness, some form of stupid courage returned to the creatures and they began to beat their tails at the stone wall upon which Kopaka stood. In a few minutes they would have him safely in their jaws, he judged gravely. His imminent defeat and relatively painful death was a bitter cup to drink from. Using up all his energy like that! Stupid! And soon he would pay for his thoughtlessness. Yes, a bitter cup indeed, overflowing and laced with all sorts of poisons.

The wall listed inwards. For a brief moment, a lost hope flared (and died) in Kopaka's eyes briefly. Perhaps the wall would collapse on them. Then, he remembered morosely that a Nui-Jaga's skin was harder than a Po-Matoran's head.

A few seconds later the wall collapsed a notch and Kopaka went sliding off in a drunken turn, the result being a twirling in the air that made no sense of direction or gravity, the only feeling a muted thud as he hit the packed sand covering the earth far below.

Kopaka found his feet, widely spread, and held his sword and shield in a defensive stance. One thought had been knocked free from the fall: stay alive! But how to do it? What plan could save him? It was hard to think through the thick black veil that plagued his racked and shaken mind. Just concentrate! He could…no. He could…no. He could…yes! He could just keep them busy, make his way in a circle around them, until he could break free, to Po-Koro. It wasn't that far a run, and the guard would push the Nui-Jaga away.

But how would that look? The great Toa, Mata Nui's chosen hero, running from a group of Nui-Jaga? He was, to them, the great savior, prophesized to save them from the evil Makuta! What would he become if they knew he couldn't even beat a few measly beasts? No, he could not run. It was the harshest mistress, destiny. He had to stay alive, but the people needed faith. Either way he lost one of those two things.

He hefted his shield and locked his arm near his chest. It seemed much heavier than usual and his arm shook with the effort.

One of them, either the bravest or the dumbest, skittered forward, jaws clicking. Its stinger tail lashed out and was caught in the folds of Kopaka's shield. They struggled for a moment, no longer, and his only defense was torn away. He held his sword with two hands now, felt it drooping.

"Yee-haa!" someone shouted from behind the group. All the Nui-Jaga turned, even the one in mid-fight, to face the newcomer. It was a male, jet black, with a hunched neck that pushed forward instead of up. He was the color of a Onu-Matoran, but would have been as tall as Kopaka if his neck stood up straight. He came over the fallen wall.

He reached the Rahi and grasped one firmly by the jaws in his huge claws. They became a tangled mass, the Nui-Jaga's stinger stabbing out uselessly, until the man ripped its face off in a violent roar. He immediately leaped towards a second and grabbed it by the tail as it came towards him. He towed it in and flipped it on its back. The man laughed as he spun the beast, first smashing it into another one, then letting it fly into the distance with amazing strength.

The remaining three Nui-Jaga broke rank and fled, first gaining distance and then disappearing into the sand. Kopaka found his way to his feet and watched the man warily.

"Who are you?" he asked.

The man shrugged. "I believe my name is Onua. That's the only thing I know."

Kopaka nodded, believing him. "Well, Onua, my name is Kopaka. I am a friend. Come with me, we have some things to discuss. And thanks for rescuing me."

Onua looked around at the sand. "No thanks are necessary. I saw the beasts and I…I just lost it. I don't know why, but they had some kind of evil around them. Or something that I didn't like, anyhow. Just one thing, though."

Kopaka raised an eyebrow as he climbed over the broken stone wall. "Yeah?"

"Wherever we go, can it have shade? It's hot out here."

The ice warrior nodded, grabbing up his shield and mounting it on his back, with his sword. "Yeah, we'll go in the shade."

And so, with the Toa of Earth in tow, Kopaka made his way to Ta-Koro to discuss matters.

As he left, several words echoed in his mind, where the fog had lifted: My Gift to you, my son.


End file.
